By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate could vote on an election reform bill as soon as Wednesday. This is a priority for Democrats but has dim prospects of passing without a Republican coalition.

If the Republicans fail to pass the bill, the Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will try to amend the Senate’s filibuster rules that require 60 senators to reach agreement on the majority legislation. This maneuver is likely to be stopped by at least two of his party members who are opposed to changes to Senate rules.

Democrats view the bill to be crucial in protecting the American political process. Republican-led States have passed new voting restrictions driven by the false allegations made by Donald Trump about widespread election fraud. Republicans dismissed the bill as a partisan power grab.

When asked about the chances that Democrats would bring an election reform bill to the final stage, Dick Durbin replied: “I know what it looks like today and I’m praying for something else.” Dick Durbin (Senate Democrat 2) said to reporters that Tuesday evening, “I know how it looks today. I pray for something better tomorrow.”

It is not likely, since Republicans have shown no indication that any of their 50 members would abandon unanimity against the voter rights protections Democrats created. In the meantime, Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and other Republicans are likely to stop their party from changing Senate’s filibuster rules to allow for easier passage of partisan bills.

Senator Republican Leader Mitch McConnell stated Tuesday that the Democratic legislation was about “one party wanting to unilaterally change the rules of American election elections”.

Republican after Republican accused Democrats, accusing them of trying to overthrow states’ right to conduct elections. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock stated that their arguments were “uncannily similar” to the segregationists opposition to civil rights legislation in the 1960s which eventually succeeded.

If President Joe Biden or his colleagues in Congress fail, then attention will turn to possible bipartisan efforts by small groups of moderate senators for narrower election rules changes.

This effort might include federal funding for non-partisan state election workers to protect them from safety threats, which have increased since 2020’s presidential election. There are also ways Congress could tighten its certification of presidential elections each four years.

The battle over voting procedures and campaign finance reforms comes against the backdrop of several Republican-controlled state legislatures’ stripping away some of the get-out-the-vote practices allowed in 2020 while piling on new restrictions.

Trump encouraged them and supported their efforts. Trump continues to falsely claim that the election was stolen more than a decade after his loss in November 2020 to Democrat Biden.

That claim has been debunked by multiple court decisions, Trump’s own Justice Department and Republican-instigated investigations.

Democrats would like to see minimum federal voting standards in place that allow registered voters the ability to request a postal ballot. They also want at least two weeks’ early voting. There are ballot drop boxes and the possibility for anyone to mail in a ballot.

A bill introduced by Democrats also would try to end partisanship and change the process of redrawing congressional districts every decade. The current system of “gerrymandering,” tilts the field towards the parties in power in each state.